It’s been a busy day in Minsk. Earlier today the 49 shortlisted acts tried to impress the judging panel at Belarus’ iconic live auditions. In the end, the jury selected the 12 acts who will compete to be Belarus’ entry for Eurovision 2020.
Among the qualifiers is national final regulars NAPOLI. Like Latvia’s Markus Riva they have made an attempt every year since 2014. They’ll have the song “Dоn’t Let Me Down”, perhaps aimed at the televoters of Belarus.
Also making the list is our recent Wednesday Wishlist pick, VAL. Vlad and Lera are like a cross between Naviband and Zalagaspar — a cool couple performing songs in Belarusian. They’re in with the song “Да вiдна”.
Sadly missing out was Vitaly Voronko. He previously appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, reaching the semi-finals. After appearing and finishing last in the 2015 selection, Vitaly unsuccessfully tried once more with an ode to the potato in 2019. This time he had the song “Listen to your Heart”.
The successful acts will compete at the Belarus national final in coming weeks.Unlike the 2019 edition, where the winner was decided by jury vote alone, for 2020 the televote has returned. The winner of the grand final will be determined by a mix of jury vote and televote.
Belarus national final 2020: the finalists
Anastasiya Glamozda – “Burning again”
Anastasiya Malashkevich – “Invisible”
Anastasiya Razvadovskaya – “Hello”
Angelika Pushnova – “True Love”
AURA – “Barani svajo”
Darya Khmelnitskaya – “On Fire”
Group CHAKRAS – “La-ley-la”
KeySi – “Chili Pepper”
NAPOLI – “Dоn’t let me down”
Sasha Zakharik- “Rocky Road”
VAL – “Da vidna”
Yan Yaroche – “Fire”
What do you think? Did any of your favourites miss out? Who do you think should win the Belarus national final? Tell us your thoughts below!
[…] Let Me Down”. It’s an upbeat pop track with a cool Caribbean-style vibe. Having made it through the live auditions, the Belarusian singer will be performing first in Friday’s national […]
None of them has wow factor, I can’t see them qualified in final either. Yan is the best but vocaly isn’t strong, but backing singers make it even more bad.
Never mind those, give us a selection of the worst. Can anyone please recommend the craziest and most WTF songs, I can’t watch all of them. 🙂
Gabriel Kupatadze, Absolem Cloud, Natali Domini, Alen Hit, Vitaly Voronko.
I wouldn’t say there were any amazing WTF acts this year, and to me nothing beats Chakras in this regard, but maybe you’ll actually enjoy these.
Chakras wow. New Age is such an overlooked genre. Then again, Secret Garden used to win Eurovision!
VAL 12 points !
It’s aura and true love for me
Chakras only
I made the mistake of watching Chakras before my morning coffee…
Are Chakras serious or are they trolling? I sincerely cannot tell.
Rocky Road has some potential – they just need to make it sound less like a children’s song.
I was wondering the same thing about Chakras. Is their song a send up of ambient/ ethereal music?
I can’t believe that NO ONE is even mentioning about Yan Yaroche’s song!!! after listening to all the other pop/electronic songs I felt like this selection wasn’t diverse at all, there’s just cheap electronic songs that have nothing special (and the lalala-ley-lalala one, which is good but just that) but then I listened to Fire and it felt like a fresh air breeze between a lot of pollution and lalalas. Seeing him representing Belarus would be a dream <3
But if Belarus decides to keep with this electronic track maybe Val is a good option from all the bunch
KeySi or CHAKRAS should be the winner. VAL could be ok too. Eurofest is always full of generic pop or urban songs.
Anastasya G and AURA are my favourites.
Glamozda has potential… She seems unexperienced, maybe she was nervous, but I can see why you mentioned her.
One clear winner for me is VAL!!
By the way, did anyone go into fits of giggles like me over that Belarusian song with the bagpipes from AURA??
Maybe not the best selection but if some songs are revamped and improved they could reach the final! For now I got mixed feelings.
Some years fans complain there are to many men, some years to many women haha. You like to complain. Instead see the positive stuff sometimes. Why always complain.
CHAKRAS all the way!!! It gives me life. It gives me the universe. Everything.
I’m impressed by Angelika. Live auditions can be very awkward and she was super comfortable on the stage. Since none of the songs is special (this is by far the weakest selection I’ve checked so far), at least they should go with a fine performer. KeySi gave a confident performance too, but she needs to work a lot on her enunciation. Not an impossible task, Zena improved significantly from the national final to Tel Aviv.
”this is by far the weakest selection I’ve checked so far” After Moldovan selection which managed to produce maybe 6-7 middle-of the road songs among their 36 (and I’m saying that’s the actual top), this sounds quite disheartening… Okay, I’ll bite and listen (tomorrow morning, probably). Gool luck, Belarus! In any case, I am happy to see Angelika finally making it to the finals. Kinda bummed for Vitaliy, though. I bet he had something fun.
I’ve even forgotten that I watched the recap video from Moldova! Which is probably not a good sign… Don’t know how to compare these two selections, since one shared live auditions and the other studio versions.
I remember NAPOLI from somewhere… Was she already in ESC on something?
PS. It took me minute to realise she’s singing in english xd
Napoli AKA Olga Shimanskaya is a singer from Belarus who has taken part in every Belarusian NF since 2014, with her best result being 2nd place in 2016. She also participated in Krajowe Eliminacje 2016, where she placed 9th. She was supposed to be the Polish representative at Turkovision 2016, but the contest was cancelled.
She’s got some bops, but I don’t know if she’s ever actually tried for Eurovision with one of them.
Poland 2016, that’s what I was talking about. Thx a lot
With different styling I can see Val killing it at Eurovision, there is potential. I can also see Napoli and that chilli song qualifying to the grand final. My advice is any of those 3 for Belarus
I’ll give to CHAKRAS for bringing something different. Maybe with a good polish off it could be a decent entry?
How about actual lyrics?
True definition of cringey
How did some of these even qualify?
y’all were complaining bout the amount of testosterone this year but it seems like belarus will give us a lady!
I didn’t watch the entire audition, but from what I saw “pour lui” was clearly the best and one of the more daring entries. There also were some other modern and interesting entries. It’s so sad that they kicked them all. This is not necessarily going to be a bad national final, but it could’ve been more diverse and interesting with a diffrent line up.
Pour lui was a disaster live.
Yes, it was a bad performance, but so were all the qualifiers. These live auditions are just super cringy. Focus less on the performance and more on the song, because it’s clearly harder to improve on the latter. And in my opinion Pour lui or also “It’s okay” were better, or at least more interesting base material. And even if you don’t like this kind of music, you should agree that they would make this national final more interesting than this bunch. Half of these finalists will be forgotten after the next two performances, in the national final as well… Read more »
Val or NAPOLI for me. Both very good.
I must be in the minority but I love the majority of the songs. They all just need to work on their English lmao
Oh my… Almost none of these qualifiers know how to sing…. Except for maybe Anastasiya Malashkevich, but “Invisible” is such a boring song… Maybe it just sounds bad overall as they obviously don’t know English any of those that sing in English?!? Because “Chilli Pepper” is quite a good song, but needs a much better vocalist. So after having heard through all of these qualifiers my top 2 (and a distant 3rd place) are by far: 1: Vlad – “Da Vidna” Love that its a somewhat contemporary song in the Belarusian language (excuse me if I am wrong and it… Read more »
You are right, VAL’s song is in Belarusian. But Chakras’ song is just in la-ley-la language =)
Weak national final in my opinion, however I do like one song and that’s Burning Again. If that won’t win, it will be hard for Belarus to get a spot in the Grand Final in Rotterdam.
I’m sorry Belarus, but this is just a terrible national final. All participating songs are dated, forgettable and amateurish. I listened to every one of 49 auditions, hoping to find another “Potato Song”, and there was nothing. I mean, there might have been some acts that deserved to be in the final 12 (Paulinn, Voronko, Yuliya Glebova, Nika De, Polina Krasnovskaya, Nezabudki) but that really doesn’t say much. I actually feel sorry for the judges, who had to sit through all the performances, that must have been a miserable experience. As much as I want Belarus to do well, I… Read more »
Imo they had way better and modern songs in their line-up. They just went for 12 of the most dated or mainstream ones. A real tragedy.
CHAKRAS, please <3
this. is. torture.
Why did the jury let Angelika through with that song and denied her previous attempts with better songs?
you know what that’s a good question
Almost all of the good songs were eliminated. Chakras are the only hope. I’m assuming the eurofans will just like anything that’s a “bop”.
Chakras’ song gives me migraine. What a huge mess, they sound as if they are preaching to the devil.
chilli pepper is a bop and should win
I actually find some of these songs quite pleasant. Certainly we are not looking at Minsk 2021 here but with the right staging, they can easily qualify.
I think I like Anastasiya Razvadovskaya the most, however I can’t understand a word she’s saying, and she needs some vocal lessons. But the instrumental is great.
What a horrible selection.
Honestly, I didn’t hate the live auditions. There were many options for an interesting, modern and diverse national final, they just picked the wrong songs imo.
Justice for Jenifer!
For real! That was the best song of all the auditions!
As for NAPOLI with their chainsmokers rip-off song, how do they somehow manage to qualify to the live show each year with such cheap trashy songs?
Bribery
Rafaela Truda didn’t qualify for UMK 2020 with this song and sold her to NAPOLI
Where the heck is Elline day? Alien is a boppp and much better than those who qualified
I think my favorite this year is anastasiya. Amazing song!